Star Trek Online thread

[Tuskin38]

If they're not doing wide maintenance, then yes, tribble is up during the time holodeck is down.

[captain_obvious]

If they're not doing wide maintenance, then yes, tribble is up during the time holodeck is down.

I never realised lol

[Tuskin38]

The Andorian ship is so damn fun.

[Tuskin38]

They updated the May 2013 Teaser Page

New image and they changed the text

http://sto.perfectworld.com/sto_may2013

There is a countdown to March 21st

Maybe they're going to start releasing new missions as a build up to May? Or most likely a trailer.

The 21st is a Thursday, patch day.

[captain_obvious]

Noticed that yesterday.  Something is coming and I hope it's not the STO equivalent of NGE.

[Joshmaul]

Noticed that yesterday.  Something is coming and I hope it's not the STO equivalent of NGE.

As someone who didn't play Galaxies, what was NGE?

[Darkthunder]

New Game Enhancement/New Gaming Experience -- Effectively "killed" the game, or atleast put it on life support for a good long while, until they finally pulled the plug (in order to launch Star Wars: The Old Republic).

[Joshmaul]

New Game Enhancement/New Gaming Experience -- Effectively "killed" the game, or atleast put it on life support for a good long while, until they finally pulled the plug (in order to launch Star Wars: The Old Republic).

At the risk of increasingly showing my ignorance: How?

[captain_obvious]

At the risk of increasingly showing my ignorance: How?

Basically, it radically altered the format of the game.  Overnight, it meant that players who had literally ground out force sensitive characters (which at that time was *very* hard) had to re roll.  Everyone had to re roll. Oh, and "force sensitive" was made a starter class and nerfed to the point of irrelevance.  Where before it was a genuine achievement to become a jedi/sith and one was rewarded for the dedication with a toon that could waste hordes of normals in pvp, NGE made them a starter class with no advantages whatsoever.  Those who had made jedi/sith status pre-nge basically got shafted. 
All the items people had gathered were rendered obsolete.  To be effective, you literally had to start from nothing again.

It went from a relatively freeform skills based game (Want to be a better shot? Then go and shoot!) to a level based game like we have with STO. 

While it may not have killed the game by itself, it did drive away a lot of the older players.  What drove away those who stayed was the influx of newbies who came in to check out the "new" game. 

[Tuskin38]

I remember watching a couple live streams and recordings of the end of the game, at some point earlier in the year they enabled atmospheric flight, meaning you could spawn yur starship on the planet space and flying around.

During the endgame they spawned star destroyers or rebel ships depending on the controlling faction, over Coronet City for players to fight.

Anyways that is completely off topic lol.

[Tuskin38]

Ok, big shit found in the game files

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=8404331&postcount=177

Defs/Classes/Bridge_Officer_Romulan_Eng_Holo.Class.Ms
Defs/Classes/Bridge_Officer_Romulan_Engineer.Class.Ms
Defs/Classes/Bridge_Officer_Romulan_Sci_Holo.Class.Ms
Defs/Classes/Bridge_Officer_Romulan_Science.Class.Ms
Defs/Classes/Bridge_Officer_Romulan_Tac_Holo.Class.Ms
Defs/Classes/Bridge_Officer_Romulan_Tactical.Class.Ms

as well as class selection icons



I also found textures for Character Creation

Species_Icons_Player_Romulan_Reman_M.wtex
Species_Icons_Player_Romulan_Romulan_M.wtex
Species_Icons_Player_Romulan_Romulan_F.wtex

Faction Select

Choose_Faction_Romulan.wtex

If don't believe me, just open the  "StartrekClient.manifest" file under "Star Trek Online\Live\.patch" with a text editor and search for them.

[Darkthunder]

Class Icons (if that's what they are), need some work. To me, they look like the typical Romulan backdrop with 3 dots in either red, blue or gold. No indication of being Tactical, Science or Engineer (like the FED and KDF ones have).

I'm intrigued about the "Holo.class" files. Holograms?

I still think, the May update -might- be the foundation of a future Romulan faction, but not necessarily open it up as playable in May.

[Tuskin38]

KDF and Starfleet have HoloBOFFs, don't see why not they wouldn't give them to the Romulans.

While I agree May might possibly not be the faction, you have to consider art is the last thing they do. I remember when ever STOked and other sites got previews, art was always placeholder, even a month or two from release.

Ship powers would use icons from other powers, etc. The Vesta preview Priority One did, didn't even have textures yet and that was a half a month before release.

I uploaded the icons. First one is the Faction Select, the other 3 are self explanatory, there is a Reman Female icon but its just the male icon again.

[Joshmaul]

So this is further evidence (not solid proof - yet) that the new release is a Romulan faction or the leadup TO a Romulan faction, but it still begs the question: Is it still May, or will it be the inexplicable countdown set for the 21st of March?

[Tuskin38]

I'm assuming the 21st is the Official reveal of what ever May is. Makes sense.

This might be a conincidence, but May is the 25th anniversary of the return of the Romulans in Trek with "The Neutral Zone" in TNG.

[Darkthunder]

Lots of things happening in May:

May 16th: 25 year anniversary of the Romulans return
May 17th: Star Trek Into Darkness

And ofcourse the "update that is not a season" for STO, to be released in May.

[captain_obvious]

I remember Stahl saying that may was going to be big.  I also recall him saying that character building was going to change a lot.  Sadly, I can't remember where I saw that or what he said word for word.

But with the secrecy that's all around it, the thing is either a damp squib of a change or it's going to be huge like what NGE did for SWG. 
IIRC other than saying "There's going to be big changes" SOE was pretty much silent on NGE in the weeks leading up to it, they were even (allegedly) instalocking any threads that were discussing rumours and generally tightening up enforcement of rules on their forums.  They had a big expansion release right before NGE came out (Trials of Obi Wan). People had about a week of play out of it before bam, NGE hit.  Queue lots of very annoyed players who demanded refunds.  All in the name of upping churn rate and getting new players in. 
Cryptic hasn't been as quiet as SOE were, but they haven't exactly told us much.  Mood in game has been pretty low from what I'm experiencing too, especially from the more experienced players.  PWE wants money and to get money they need more players.  I forsee this coming "maydate" being an alteration of game format to make it more suited to new players, so they can shake down the newbies for more cash than the unhappy oldies are willing to provide.

I hope I'm wrong, but I'm seeing too many parallels with what happened with SWG to not be nervous.

[FarShot]

Don't forget the countdown that expires this month.  Can't see it being anything other than the big reveal of what the May update is.  Don't know why all you guys are being so pessimistic, lighten up.

[Tuskin38]

Yes they're redoing Character creation, but he also said your current characters will not be effected so it must not be changing the core of the characters.

[captain_obvious]

Yes they're redoing Character creation, but he also said your current characters will not be effected so it must not be changing the core of the characters.

Didn't see that one.  All I'd heard was that they were making big big changes to the creator.  At least that's one thing off the list.